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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PER ASPERA 
AD ASTRA 



PER ASPERA 
AD ASTRA 



A COLLECTION OF POEMS 



BY 



ALEXANDRA VON HERDER 




NEW YORK 

ROBERT GRIER COOKE, INCORPORATED 

1907 



. • kt 1907 by Robert Grier Cooke, Inc. 

All rights reserved. 

Enurei a. S,.uoncr, Hall. Lonion. 



\\t?jm oi nor 



27- "i^'? 

COPY i-i._ _,_^^. 






JUl 29 90^ ■ \ "^ On( 



To T. de Gunthe 

On the dawn of the day of your marriage, 

Others will bring you their gold, 
Their jewels, their gems and their silver— 

My hands this book only hold, 
This fragment — but suffer its pages 
i^ To mirror the light of your soul, 

(5 And the greatest of human treasures 

Will gild and transfigure the scroll 



INDEX. 

ASPERA 

Marcus Aurelius on His Death Bed in the 
Roman Camp at Vindobona, during His 
Campaign against the Marcomans, March, 
A. D., 180 17 

Note to Pope Celestine V. . . . . .21 

Pope Celestine V 22 

A Woman's Face 25 

The Wreck of the "Aden" 26 

Sunset off Sandy Hook 27 

Sea Nocturne 28 

How Shall We Live? 29 

Prayers 30 

The Shadow on the Dial 31 

Birth Throe 32 

Retro Me Homine 33 

Nocturne 34 

Regret 35 

Cm Bono 36 

For a Little 37 

Among the Flowers 38 

Star Song 39 

The Last Trek 40 



ASTRA 

Catholicity 45 

The Solitary Column of Karnak . . . .46 

The Central Altar in the Temple of Heaven 
Peking 47 

An Atlantic Liner . . 48 

Mount Everest 49 

The Desert 50 

The Rain Cloud 51 

The Sunset Cloud 52 

Sanctuary 53 

Resurrection 54 

Evolution 55 

Benedicite Ver 56 

Spring 57 

Birds 58 

Summer Harvest 59 

Sic Transit 60 

Though It Be Death 61 

To a Young Girl 62 

To Ruth 63 

Immortality 64 



ASPERA 



Marcus Aurelius on His Death Bed in the Roman 
Camp at Vindobona, during His Campaign 
against the Marcomans, March, A. D., 1 80 

Draw close the curtains of my tent — they're cold 

Those cruel winds of March. How is it with me? 

Disease enthrals me wholly and there is that 

Within me whispers death itself is close 

At hand. What, tears? Nay, nay that is rebellion 

Against a greater prince than I. If He, 

Who sent me here, now bids me go, what cause 

Is there for sorrow? Let Him be satisfied — 

What would ye more? Ye murmur that He called 

Too soon! How should ye know? Is mortal man — 

Who in the boundless stretch of time discerns 

But one small point, the time that is ; who owns 

No magic spell wherewith to bind the least 

Swift second of the past, no vision's breadth 

Wherewith to scan the mighty aeons still 

Unborn ; who, hardly longer than t'wixt dawn 

And sunset crawls out life upon the clod, 

The narrow clod he calls his world, — is he 

Fit arbiter of what is truly termed 

"Too soon or late"? It is the will of Fate 

To set a term to whatsoever once 

Began ; Death is the common lot of all, 

As natural as birth and growth, less strange, 

Less terrible than life. What room were there 

For youth, if age endured for ever? Men die 

So that mankind may live. Mark well the book 

Of Nature. Does it not show the breaking wave 

Dissolve without a sigh upon the shore. 

The rose shed silently its purple crown, 

The ripened olive drop unmurmuring 

Unto the ground ; and these are soulless things. 

Shall man who has a soul to comprehend, 

Whose spirit is akin to God's, alone 

Revolt against the universal scheme? 

Consider, too, how little happiness 

Mere length of days adds to the mind. I've seen 

Men rich in years, so poor in everything 

That lendeth grace and worth to life, they moved 

My heart to pity; and if I thus perceived 

That all that signifies is not how long. 

But how a human being lives, I learnt 

As well, that this most fragile particle 

Of mind and matter, man, whom sixty years 

17 



Of fleeting time drain dry of all his power, 

Was scarcely fashioned to endure the blaze 

Of God's Eternity. Our fear of death 

Is but an appetite for longer life, 

And like all appetites will lead astray 

When uncontrolled by reason. O Universe, 

From whom all things proceed, in whom they all 

Subs'st, and unto whom all must return, 

If 'tis for thy good that I yield up life, 

Let no one murmur at my death. So soon, 

The mourners are as still and cold as those 

They wept for in their bitterness. To-day 

I die, to-morrow thou ; and shortly all 

Who ever knew us, hating us or loving, 

Are vanished like a little smoke, and then 

This beauteous world, in which we laughed, and hoped 

And toiled, will scarce remember where our graves 

Are slowly crumbling into dust. My God ! 

That cruel pang again. How fluently 

We talk of sickness and calamity, 

While all is well, but gripped by adverse fate 

It needeth much philosophy to repress 

The cry of pain; and thou art weeping? Still? 

Ah Fronto, noble friend. I know there are 

Some griefs, to which the loftiest arguments 

Of reason seem as cold a consolation 

As for the burdened body is this bleak 

Barbarian land ; and lately — but may be 

My body's fever bursting bounds, has seared 

The soul — a doubt, a gnawing doubt, chill, blank, 

Dissolving as the autumnal mists, which creep 

And cling among these marsh girt northern woods. 

Has overcast my inmost thoughts, — a doubt 

That in the changeful flux of Fate all things 

Not always alter for the best, that man 

Is to the great Creative Force no more 

Than is the lump of clay unto the potter, 

Who, even as he lists, will mould of this 

A statue, of that a mean and paltry jar. 

To be despised or honoured, used and crushed 

To pieces, according to no higher law 

Than the accident of chance; yea that our soul 

Itself, is but a lightning flash of reason 

Which, for an instant, burns 'midst vortices 

Of senseless atoms, lost within the womb 

Of night. A giddy thought ! My teachers taught 

Not so, and I would fain still twine my dreams 

Round their belief, my worship round their altars, 

18 



Around their confidence my hopes; fain, fain, 

But that I fear it is the cowardice 

Of weakness thus to cling to hearsay creeds, 

Instead of gazing out with mine own eyes 

And with that 'steadfast boldness which, indeed, 

Is the only real reverence, far out 

Into Creation's Mystery. How oft 

I tried to fill the silence, wherewith God 

Still answers man's impatient questionings. 

With guidance of a teacher's voice — in vain! 

If truth demands, we must unflinchingly 

Discard beliefs, which strain and split 'neath weight 

Of fuller knowledge, yea e'en though its stern 

Command destroy, with scarcely a regret 

For their lost beauty, all those sweet illusions, 

Those threads of golden poetry, that hid 

And bridged the dark abyss of the unknown. 

Yea, truth is stern and pitiless, but who 

Shall say if, in the centuries to come, 

When less constrained by blinding use and custom, 

Mankind shall not at last discern how far 

The strong perfection of reality 

Transcends the painted beauty of its dreams? 

Yea, who can tell, who know? All-seeing God 

How Thou must mock or pity us ! I prate 

Of fuller knowledge, and all we hold is scarce 

A drop out of Thy boundless ocean that — 

With most, defiled with mud ; stern limits set 

Unto the wisest man's researches; the mind 

Of Socrates himself imprisoned close 

By ignorance. Laboriously we build 

Our grave philosophies, as children pile 

Their puny heaps of sand and shells, call this 

A palace, that a fortress, till the sea. 

With one lap of a lazj' wave, wipes all 

Away and makes the children's playground blank 

And level as before. Let us not boast 

Then of a certitude beyond the reach 

Of finite mind, but humbly walk, with brow 

Serene and steady foot, the path we know 

Is good, the path of virtue and of truth. 

To tread that path is all the God within 

Demands of us; not to be there, in life 

Or death, the only evil which subdues 

The soul of man; and walking thus, as on 

We move from deepest night to glimmering dawn, 

Some time perhaps, for some of us the clouds 

Will lift and through their broken multitudes 

19 



Will burst the grand Apocalypse of God! 

Ah, not for me. My part is done for ever — 

That pain again — its work now is soon ended. 

Let no one importune the Gods with prayers 

For my recovery. Behold I die 

A royal death at duty's foremost post 

Of danger, combating my country's foes. 

I'm weary, friends ; my soul, like to a bird 

Upon the threshold of dim Night, would close 

Its quivering wings and hush its wealth of music 

Within the silence of untroubled rest. 

Greet Rome, my Rome, for me when you return 

To her from banishment, yea, greet her well, 

And tell her how a Stoic Emperor dies. 



Note to Pope Celestine V. 

Celestine V. was Pietro the son of a peasant of Southern 
Italy. At the age of twenty he had joined the order of the 
Benedictines, and later retired into the mountains of Apulia, 
where he lived with a few other hermits who afterwards 
called themselves Celestines. In 1294 when he was already 
quite an old man his solitude was broken into by cardinals 
and archbishops requesting him to exchange his hermit cell 
for the papal throne. He refused at first, but when Charles 
II. of Naples and Andrew III. of Hungary joined their en- 
treaties to those of the cardinals, he consented to accept the 
Tiara. He was, however, profoundly unhappy in his new 
surroundings, and after a little over two years, disgusted 
with the worldliness and intrigues rampant at the papal 
court, he resigned and fled back to his Apulian Mountain 
solitude. But his successor, Boniface VIII., fearing a schism, 
caused him to be arrested and thrown into prison, where he 
died on the 19th of May, 1294, at the age of eighty-one. 



21 



Pope Celestine V. 



Ah, take it hence; release me from this crown. 

Which with its treble weight of Earth and Heaven 

And Hell in never opening circles binds 

My brow. Remove it quite ! My eyes are dim 

With gazing on the pageantry of life 

For fuller length of years than frail mortality 

Can fitly bear. My weary footsteps faint 

'Neath honours heaped upon me, honours borne 

So badly they have turned to bitter shame. 

Yet Lord ! Thou knowest that I sought them not. 

Not mine the fierce ambition that devours 

And goads still upward over wrecks of loves, 

And dreams and friendships till the topmost rung 

Is reached, whence gazing down the world appears 

The toy, the passive plaything of one being 

Intoxicated with applause. Not mine 

The hunger for the sunshine of this world. 

Its blaze of pomp and power, wealth, renown. 

I loved the cool sweet shade of humble life, 

Embowered in peace and solitude, filled full 

With grace, as cup of violet brims with dew. 

And God had granted my desire. The deep 

Seclusion of monastic vows bound fast 

The placid current of my days, which knew 

No other change, but that the sunrise breathed 

"Orate," and the star, whose tremor crowns 

The sunset glow, would whisper "Vigilate." 

I never dreamed but that they still would glide, 

Each like to each rounded with prayer, smooth 

And still as rosary beads; would glide from dawn 

To night, from night to dawn, in sacred, safe 

Monotony even to the longest night 

Of all. O vanity of human thought! 

Ye came, ye whom I know not, ye whom hating 

I never could have hurt as ye hurt me. 

Ye broke the silence of my hermit's cell 

With clash of worldly tongues and cares : "Be Pope ! 

"We cardinals have chosen thee." I heard, 

But knowing God had not approved the choice, 

I would not follow at your call. Then kings 

Approached and knelt before me in the dust ; 

"Great Anchorite, we know thee pure and just, 

"Without a stain. The Church is sick for dearth 

"Of upright men like thee. Give her thy strength ! 

"What does it in this wilderness? Like gold, 

"The miser hides and hoards, it yields mankind 

"No fruit of joy. The Christian world hath need 

22 



"Of thee, the Christian world which for two years 
"In vain has clamoured for a Pope." With these 
And other reasonings they overwhelmed 
My hesitance, until perplexed, I half 
Believed the voice of God spoke with their tongues— 
I yielded, and they made me Pope. Yea Pope! 
O had ye known what force for good or ill 
Lies in that name, mayhap ye would have paused 
Before ye cast it thus away. Behold 
These old and trembling hands. Was't right to place 
Within their feeble grasp the keys of Hell 
And Heav'n? Was't just to call a helpless man 
The representative of Christ? What is 
This thing I call myself, that its least word 
To multitudes should be command, as though 
Decreed by God Himself? And ye who flaunt 
That rash assumption, know full well ye speak 
A lie. Do ye not daily seek to bend 
My sovereign power, that it may cringe and curve 
Along the dark and crooked paths which lead 
Unto the satisfaction of your own 
Ungodly aims? Blind leaders of the blind! 
My soul is sick with all this gorgeousness 
Of broidered vestments, jewelled mitres, clouds 
Of incense, crowds of officiating priests 
Who pray but for their own advancement; chants 
And services, lip-services, while through 
Them all, the spirit starves, the famished soul 
Famts unto death ! Are ye the ministers 
Of God, ye who have even dared debase 
Repentance and remission of men's sins 
Into a market-thing to sell and buy? 
||And what of that? The papal treasury 
Gets filled. The world's way." 
True, perhaps, but I, 
Who fled the world in unmarred youth, abhor 
These ways and stumble in their tangled maze 
Of crookedness. O God ! For one more breath 
Of thme own air that blows with strength of freedom 
Around my rock-bound wilderness: The sun 
At this last parting hour will flood the vale 
With heavenly light, and cast a radiant halo 
Around my wooden crucifix ; and then 
When Night's unbounded stillness hath engulfed 
Ihe lesser silence of the day, as streams 
Are lost within the mighty sea's embrace, 
Ihe moon will rise and wed her virgin beauty 
Unto the mountains' majesty. My cell 



23 



My lonely hermit's cell, my eagle's nest. 
Perched up so high above the valley's clouds 
And cares, which hears no sound but cry of birds, 
And splash of crystal torrents bounding down 
From rock to rock — let me return, O take 
Me back unto my windswept mountain home, 
Back, where the wearied soul can think and pray ! 
Ye shake your heads, ye frown — although ye need 
Me not nor love. Do I not often hear 
You whispering the name of my successor, 
Wliom everyone of you in secret strives 
And longs to be ? Vainhearted fools ! I tell you. 
Sackcloth should be the Pope's dalmatica. 
The tiara should be made of thorns, that men 
Like you, agape for gold and glittering pomp, 
Should ne'er crowd into offices which saints 
Alone can rightly fill. And I, no saint : 
A foolish, weak and broken man, a tree 
Transplanted in old age, which needs must fall 
Because it cannot strike fresh roots. Well, well — 
How I have talked— the shades of evening thicken ; 
In but a little, night outlines with black 
The aureoles of the holy figures limned 
Upon the chapel's glass. To vespers then, 
Lord Cardinals, to vespers ! From my soul 
I'll murmur : Nunc dimittis, Lord, O Lord !" 



24 



A Woman's Face 

Angels and demons once fought for her soul, 

Harvests and ruins of ye^rs as they roll 
Fell to her lot : adoration and shame. 
Hunger and surfeit, sting of frost and of flame, 

Starkindled dewdreams, thunderbolt flash. 

Rapturous ecstasy, scorpion-tongued lash — 

Of love in his passion lifted and caught her, 
Life-force possessed her, made her and taught her. 

Rent her and spent her ! Of both now bereft, 

Desolate, weary, alone she is left, 

Dull as the stretch of the waterless shore. 
Whose barren sands may exult never more 

In whisper and welter and salt of the wave. 

Athwart her brow blows the breath of the grave, 
Cold flows her blood in her stiff'ening veins. 
Pale are her pleasures, puny her pains. 

The breast is withered, the hair fallen grey — 

But the eyes remember what the lips may not say. 



The Wreck of the "Aden" 

'Tis upon us again, the force of the wave. 
Foaming, ferocious, fathomless grave ; 

Cling for bare life to the slippery rail 

Bent and twisted by rage of the gale, 
Above us, beneath us, the bottomless sea, 
Lord God of tempests, we cry unto Thee. 

Thou alone O Lord, art refuge and stay, 

The winds and the waves Thy power obey. 

We are fainting with fear and horror and pain, 
Who shall escape when the tide comes again? 

Destruction looms hideous, our strength ebbs away. 

Lord God of tempests, save us we pray. 

We are Thy children ; Thou madest us ; 

Have we sinned above others, to perish thus? 
The billows are lashing and rending the deck, 
We scarce still can cling to the quivering wreck. 

Destroy not the life Thy providence gave, 

Lord God of Tempests, save us, O save. 

Have mercy upon us, hear us, O Lord, 
Victim on victim is swept overboard. 

Struggles an instant, shrieks and is drowned. 

Haste Thee to succour, be no deaf to the sound 
Of prayers for help! O horrible fear — 
There is no God in the billows to hear. 

Monstrous they roar, hungry-mouthed, cruel-lipped. 
Voracious chasms to foampools whipped : 

They care not, they know not whose lifeblood they 
spill ; 

O mankind, with glory of reason and will. 
Art thou so great then? Behold the blind sea, — 
The fringe of its fury annihilates thee. 

Cease then from prayer, give up the fight ; 

Though above the sea's strength rule a greater might, 
Men are but creatures and things of a day, 
For the forces of nature to bring forth and slay: 

Tarry not, take us, huge bosomed wave. 

Horrible, world wide, beautiful grave ! 



26 



Sunset Off Sandy Hook 

A bridge of gold 
.Of beauty untold, 
Over ripples unrolled 
'Tvvixt the ship and the shore. 

Over ripples just foaming 
In blue of the gloaming, 
Through which we are roaming 
In quest of the shore. 

What would it forebode 
To the wishes which goad 
Across the bleak road 
From cruel home-shore? 

Are the waves less bitter, 

As sunbeams they fritter 

To sparkles which glitter 

On bright alien shore? 

The sparkles which mould 
The lithe bridge of gold 
For Hope to unfold 
Her flight to the shore. 

But the bridge is so frail, 
And hope is so pale. 
Will she not fail 

Before she reach shore? 



27 



Sea Nocturne 

Stormclouds lifting and drifting, 

Starlight radiant again, 
Only away to the leeward 

Dreariness, dimness of rain. 

Waters open before us, 
Folds of glimmering white. 
Close — a faint hissing of bubbles, 
Broken, submerged in the night. 

Onward from shores forgotten 

To harbours none of us know 
We move 'twixt the waves' unfathomed 

And the stars' unsearchable flow. 

While in us ideals forsaken 

And goals obscured arise, 
And the wail of the whole world's sorrow 

Through the Wet, through the Infinite cries. 



How Shall We Live? 

The Birds: 
"How shall we live O Winter? 
We filled the warm depths of the Summer 
With resonance of our songs ; 
We caused its sunbeam-flooded skies to kindle 
With winnowing of new-born wings; 
Abundantly we took from Life, 
And abundantly we gave. 

But now — there is a stillness on the meadows, 
And a coldness in the air — 
How shall we live now. Winter?" 

The Winter: 
"O little children of the Summer, 
What is this, that ye ask of me? 
Is it not enough that ye have lived already, 
Not enough, that high in Heaven 
The music of your songs was heard, 
That from your nests 
A joyful multitude went forth? 
Would ye exceed your destiny, 
And linger on beyond the force 
That made you? 

My little children of the Summer, 
I am Oblivion — I am Death !" 



Prayers 

The Masses. — "Give us the spacious halls, the sumptuous 
board, 
The cars, the ships, the jewellers' hoard, 
Each joy and dalliance gold can buy!" 

The Man. "Give me the sky!" 

The Masses. — "Give us importance, power, titles, fame, 
Make ours the envied, flattered name 
Before which crowds obsequious bend !" 

The Alan. "Give me a friend." 

The A;l\asses. — "Spare us Thy thunder's battle strain. 
Vouchsafe immunity from pain, 
From clang of deathbells as they toll !" 

The Man. "Give me the soul !" 



30 



The Shadow on the Dial 

Beyond the shadow on the Dial, 

Alternate change of dawn and dusk, 
Shall we from opening of flowers 

And closing of their withered husk, 

Conceive the final Mystery, 

Inscrutable to questionings, 
The Impulse, Anguish or the Thought 

Which moves and multiplies all things? 

And shall our mind, which made Time's measure, 

With what is measurelessly true 
At last be crowned? Or on the Dial 

Are we but phantom shadows too? 



31 



Birth Throe 

Silence primeval in Time's folded coil 
And Dimness lay, unwoken yet from sleep 
Than Death's last slumber more profound and deep; 

And Effort was not yet, nor strife and broil 

Of creatures each to each destroyer or spoil, 
And human souls were not to laugh or weep 
And in the mirror of their thoughts to keep 

The fragrance of all harvests of the soil, 

Until Creation's dream enflamed that night ; 

And since the Silence dreamt of perfect sound. 
And Dimness of the dazzling dawn of light, 

The anguish of their yearning gathered round 
Creation. Now, in each fresh birth her might 

Brings forth, the pain of that first wound is found. 



33 



Retro Me Homine 

O steep thy heart in roses, 
,Thy soul in song of birds. 

Forget all human faces, 
Unlearn all human words. 

.They do but moan and mutter, 
Clubfooted, reft of wing, 

Into thi;ir own mud trampling 
The bounteousness of Spring. 

They strangle life with phantoms: 
"Thou shalt not, and thou must," 

Proclaim as law and virtue 
Their twisted ropes of dust. 

Too high for them thy Heaven, 

Too luminous, too blue, 
Too deep the well of gladness. 

Whereto thy yearning flew. 

Too wide thy breadth of vision. 
Thy hearing all too keen, 

Too infinite thy knowledge. 
Thy sense of things unseen. 

Thy liberty too dazzling, 

Too perilous thy gains ; 
Slaves, born and bred in prison. 

Their only faith is chains. 

They make it shame and sorrow. 
What should abound with grace— 

The sound of human voices. 
The sight of human face. 

From theirs thy paths be severed. 
Let these stand thee for words:— 

The fragrance of wild roses, 
The music of wild birds. 



33 



Nocturne 

The day with all its trouble, 

Is dying in the west, 
E'en as a weary flower 

The world droops into rest. 

Great stars begin to glisten 

And glimmer into sight, 
So far, so faint, so perfect, 

Like dreams dreamt in the night; 

Like hope that draws together 
Those whom the world would part, 

Like love that longs and lingers 
Unuttered in the heart. 



34 



Regret 

O fragrance of dark violets that hung 

An instant in the air, O music sung 

Beneath the stars, O hallowed touch 

Of human lips and human hands of such 

Surpassing loveliness, until there rose, 

From off the road of life, the dust which blows 

On all that's sweet; the dust which spares but set, 

Stern task and no companion but regret. 



35 



Cui Bono 

What is toil 

From gains forbidden? 
What is day, 

From which is hidden 
Light? 

What is hope 

In worlds unbettered? 
What is patience 

Roughly fettered 
To Despair? 

What is sleep 

By dreams forsaken? 

What is life 
From which is taken 
Love? 



For a Little 

come and tarry by my fireside, 
Tlje evenings are long and grey — 

Thy voice is music in the twilight, 
O for a little, come and stay! 

1 have been sad and passing weary 

All through the hard, the lonely day — 
Thy hand is soothing in the twilight, 
O for a little, come and stay! 

There is a world, the world knows nought of. 

Beyond its envy hid away — 
Deep in the silence of the twilight, 

O my beloved, come and stay ! 



37 



Among the Flowers 



Among the flowers of the summer, 
When first thy face appeared to me, 

Through all the dreammess of summer. 
Among the flowers, I yearned for thee. 

Among the thorns \A,hich Fate and hardness 
Of thine own heart 'twixt thee and me 

Still scattered for my feet to bleed on, 
Among the thorns, I lived for thee. 

Below the moss, the moss untrodden. 
When I am nothing more to thee, 

I shall be healed in dreamless slumber 
From all the wounds thou gavest me. 



Star Song 

Far, so far, 
Lonely star, 
Hidden half 
In a cloud. 
Cloud as heavy 
As a shroud. 

Far, so far, 
Beauteous star 
Of the evening 
Of my days. 
All thy rays 
Hidden quite 
Out of sight 
In the loneliness 
Of night. 

Wilt thou come 

Once again, 
Sweet as sunshine 
After rain? 
Bright as gleams 
Through my dreams 
In the loneliness 

Of night 

The remembrance 

Of thy light. 
Star, my star, 

Now so far? 



The Last Trek 

Strike camp now boys, pack what biltong is left, 

Load up the waggon ; inspan the team, trek 

To the North ; you'll find the gold yet. I stop here, 

I'm too done now to ride; the jolt in the waggon 

Finished me up. Ye'd wait? Our stock's too low. 

Leave me ; 'tis best. I know what 'tis to be tied 

To deadweights. Curse the whole lot. I'll not pay 

This dirty world back in its own base coin. 

There's a hell of pride ablaze in me yet. I lived 

Alone ; alone I shall die. Drop it, your pity. 

Human pity's too close to contempt, Death 

Ain't so dreadful looked square in the eye ; the last 

Pons Asinorum we've all got to cross. 

I'm all right. But ye might just hitch up that blanket 

A bit, and shift the pillow ; my neck's kind 

Of cricked. Here, take my watch — I've done with time. 

My money, too — Don't spend it in drink. Then leave 

Me here beneath the sky, so cool now, so calm, 

He almost seems kind. And His stars and I 

We'll have our last palaver out. Lor, how 

They lied ! Don't they twinkle like rogues ? Maybe 

My bearings were out; still I swear, that they vowed. 

If only I always stuck to their lead. 

They'd surely land me in Paradise. . . . They sink, 

And I — well two hours still at most ; a lame 

Flat end to a thirty years' trek. Not even 

A grave. You mustn't wait to shovel me in. 

The birds can have me ; they get hungry too. 

To the last, I'd turn my eyes to the light. I'll get 

My fill of the dark, had darkness enough. 

The hells I've been through, the worries, the cares! 

How I groused and cursed, prayed to Devils and Gods 

I didn't believe in ! It let off steam, 

Was useful at that. Helped? Not much. Luck helps. 

I used to fancy work did, honesty, 

Patience, all that copybook stufif. It does — 

For some. Some fellows score before they've bowled. 

I lose my wicket for scarcely a run, 

The bowling and batting ain't twice just alike. 

The rules, too, differ in every inan's game. 

That makes it so hard. Still a hard game's good, 

If only the Umpire always were fair. 

He is? Bosh. Wait and play your deadlevel best 

Through the blazing noon, then find yourself stumped 

By the cowardly lie of a blackguardy cur — 

Grousing, eh? Kind of foolish now, when all's 

40 



Too late. Ah well^t eased the pain in the chest 

Awhile. I won't deny I scored some too ; 

Had some rattling good times, got Kudos and fun : 

Life's grand at its worst. Size up evil and good. 

They're plentiful both and much more akin 

Than parsons'd say. I've sampled most things, fruit 

Forbidden and lawful : there's wormwood in both, 

And ashes at last. That's why I went under? 

Rot. Look at that Jew swine. He's a success. 

He forged, embezzled, starved his brother to death, 

A wrong 'un right through ; yet his wife's a shop 

Of Kimberly ware, his mistresses too. 

He'll soon be a lord. I worked— I am here. Luck, 

That's it. Fate's cruel? No. Just fond of gamblin' 

With loaded dice, and the Boss of the show, 

How he must laugh when a puppet's heartstring sudden 

Goes fut. Broken hearts not the fashion? That's so. 

But courage run dry, sheer physical strength 

Used up in the fight, pride and trust in one's work 

Clean gone, that ain't played out, that's brought me here 

Low in the thorns and dust of the veldt. What, grousing 

Again? Give us a drop then. Here's to you boys, 

Good luck, good luck. That's all there's in it: 

'Twent against me badly, but who cares now? 

Exceptin' the vultures — They'll find so little 

To pick off my bones. Hallo — there's the dawn : 

Twelve miles to cover before it gets hot. 

Time ye were off. Good bye, shake hands, though hands 

Mean little to me, since the one small hand 

I worshipped like God, slipped from my grasp and wounded 

Me most. What story's that? A secret? Yes. 

'Twill die with me, as a secret should. But you 

Are friends. True, capital friends, still there was 

An hunger in me you couldn't feed, a scar, 

The kindest touch would startle to pain. And so 

It's best as it is. It's all for the best. 

Any message to send? No, I'll not bother 

A soul. Death comes to all — life's last little joke, 

A good one perhaps. I'll know pretty soon. 

That's something — only — only — if I could 

First have done what 'twas in me to do. — Bad luck. 



ASTRA 



Catholicity 

I worship in a temple of a thousand shrines; 
Unto 'its portals lead a thousand roads, 
And at the passing of a thousand winds 
A thousand bells of gold begin to chime. 

There are a thousand gods upon the altars 

Veiled with a thousand shades and lights, adored 

By murmur of a thousand prayers couched 

In a thousand modes of speech. A thousand clouds 

Of incense from a thousand silver censers 

Swung from a thousand silver chains, float round 

Them, and a thousand candles burn. Yet are 

They all one God, my God, sometimes so close. 

He seems myself; so far again, the faint 

Trail of the Milky Way might be the breathing 

Of His mouth. He has received a thousand names, 

Yet IS He nameless; a thousand shapes, yet hath 

He none. He is the shadow of a dream. 

The glamor of a rainbow on the void. 

The elusiveness of music, breath profound 

Of inspiration, fugitive delight 

Of peace, whisper of infinitude, Man's 

Apotheosis! And lo— He is the yearning 

Of the dreamer, the anguish of the unattained 

The hunger and the sorrow of the soul. 

I worship in a temple of a thousand shrines. 
Unto Its portals lead a thousand roads. 
And at the passing of a thousand winds 
A thousand bells of gold begin to chime. 



The Solitary Column of Karnak 

Lotus-crowned pillar! since thy leaves of stone 

Were by an ancient sculptor raised on high, 

Into thy calyx gazed no mortal eye : 

Celestial orbs' undying rays alone 

Now touch and gild thee, even like a throne. 

From which the sad-browed queen — pale Memory — 

Speaks to the constellations of the sky 

Of things they shone upon — great things unknown 

To all but them and thee, proud shaft ! — Spell-bound 

I linger near thee, till that symphony 

Thou pourest forth, that music — where the sound 

Of old Egyptian glories passed away 

With yesterday's warm breath is interwound, — 

Thrills through my soul in mystic harmony. 



46 



The Central Altar in the Temple of Heaven, 
Peking 

Enduring verdure of tall cypress-tree, 
Glazed lazuh of lustrous tiles deep wrought 
Magnihcence of alabasters brought 
Together in concentric rows of three 
Complete the glorious altar, wide and free 
io every grandeur of the sky, with nought 
Ut roof or pillar to imprison thought 
As upwards it exults, O Heaven, to Thee. 

No dogma cult, no reverence of fear. 

No graven image, no unworthy tear, 

Insight alone of him who is a seer 

Is suffered to officiate at this shrine 

Whose perfect harmony of light and line 

Creates on Earth, through Earth, the Soul Divine 



47 



An Atlantic Liner 

Water destroys man, space wearies his feet; 
Yet space and water his mastery feel 
O'erborne, o'erruled by swift forefoot and keel 
Of the moving ship in whose engine room meet 
Propeller and piston, bolt, rod, shaft and wheel, 
Giant anatomy moulded in steel 
With heart of fire and pulsation of heat. 

Man's work alone ! His the brain cell to scheme, 
The supple hand to embody the dream, 
The will no peril unconquered to leave. 
Through all resistances progress to cleave, 
Dead weight of iron, evanescence of steam 
Curbed and compelled his behests to achieve. 



Mount Everest 

Alone, alone, deep-cushioned in the sky, 

The long waves of Infinitude forever 

Eddying around his brow, the height supreme 

Of circhng Earth in wide elliptic curve 

Is swung through boundless space. He, first to seize 

Ihe quivermg radiations flushed and flung 

From that great cup of throbbing gold which brims 

lo overflowmg with the intoxicating wine 

Of light— the glorious Sun. He, last to plunge 

Away from Day's transcendent crimson down 

Into the liquid lazuli of Night; 

There to commune unseen with magnetisms 

In threads invisible spun from the stars; 

The Chariot wheels above him, meteors flash 

Their instant triumph past him through the void; 

Oceans waft their longing towards him, dank trails 

Of moisture poised, precipitated round 

His crags in crystals of pellucid snow. 

They cling to him, a crown of royal splendour, 

Until the hungerpower of the deep 

Drags them reluctant down with muttered roar 

Of avalanche. Spring comes not unto him 

Nor summer. Unbroken has he kept his faith 

To Winter of remotest time. The fierce, 

Keen cold of the abyss has bitten hard 

Into his heart. No life, as we know life, 

Invades his peace ; but for the whirl of wind 

And cloud all motion here were petrified. 

And yet— when silver radiance of the moon 

Impinges on the glimmering ice and quartz. 

Who knows but that the mountain-summit's soul 

Yearns not across the ether— dreaming, e'en 

As all those silent things which we call dead, 

In their stupendous loneliness may dream? 



The Desert 

Huge Desert, parched thy sand-drifts, and thy stones 

Unfruitful ; the secrets of beginnings, sad 

With silences of ends, are sealed within 

Thy soul. Waste thou art called and useless dust, 

Because thy void to man's voraciousness 

No harvest yields but pang of hunger, craze 

Of thirst. Thou only hast triumphantly 

Withstood the foul pollution of his yoke 

Wherewith the earth is seared, till all her streams 

Must turn his wheels, her quarried mountains bleed 

Their ore, her forests fall to roof his hut. 

But thou, O desert, art the watcher calm, 

And final overwhelmer of his pride. 

Thy sombre strength is like unto the strength 

Of ultimate foundations. The burn and blaze 

Of every sunbeam of the day thou takest, 

And all the stinging iciness of night, 

Untempered, unalloyed by veil of cloud 

Or verdure, naked, proud, fierce, unafraid, 

Hard to the very core of thee. The wind 

Alone, whose wings, beyond the rolling globe. 

Sweep the abysmal ether, may breathe on thee, 

And mould the surface motion of thy sands; 

But his force, too, sinks broken on thine heart 

Unbreakable. So deeply hast thou drunk 

Of death, forever now thou art immune. 

Change, keenest despot of Creation, deals 

Not with thee, and his relentless ally. Time, 

Halts on the threshold of thy realm. Great Kings 

Of old in thee have raised their sepulture, 

And Empire-builders of to-day, near thee 

Have craved to rest their bones. Thou mighty One, 

Well-nigh eternal and immutable. 

Home of the hermit, healer of the mind 

Sore with the pettiness of human aims. 

Mine, where the iron for the sure destruction 

Of lying values of the crowd, has been 

And ever shall be forged ; thou simple One, 

Light thy sole ornament, and Space, dread symbol 

Of Infinity, lifeless, loveless, lone 

And free ; profoundest Dreamer of the far 

To-morrow, of long forgotten yesterdays, 

Art thou but soulless sand, or that strange thing 

Inscrutable and unknown still, where matter 

With seed of spirit-strength so teems, the two 

Seem one, the spirit — child of matter, matter — 

The mother, patient with a wayward child? 

50 



The Rain Cloud 

With all the jewelry of rainbows girt, 

Borne she'er above huge mountains on the wings 

Of western winds, the cloud sheds down its wealth 

Of moisture on the parched, the famished soil : 

And lo the glory of the rainbow melts. 

The very being of the fruitful cloud 

Dies, dissolved, destroyed, devoured by that great deed 

Of bounty, nourishing the famished soil. 



51 



The Sunset Cloud 

Thou great and mellow evening cloud, uplifted 

Into effulgence of the Sun, wast thou 

The swiftly speeding surface of some strong 

And restless stream, the storm-tossed foam of wild 

Salt seas, the smoothly silent mirror 

Of silver willows round a pond? Aflame 

Now, kindled into ecstasy of light. 

For one supreme and perfect consummation 

No more a cloud ; a dazzling incandescence, 

A burning aureole of gold. 

And then, 
When night extinguishes thy splendour, Earth 
Will draw thee back to her dark heart as dew. 
And through the heaviness of shadows thou 
Wilt whisper echoes of thine hour of gold. 



52 



Sanctuary 

O gol4 of all the sunsets spilt, since Earth 

Has first been sung to sleep; O silver stream 

Of all the moons in midnight memories 

Enshrmed; O sweetness of the almond blossom 

Swaymg m the azure sky; O warmth benign 

Of the comradeship of friends, ye are my home, 

My happmess, my peace; the flame, the fragrance 

And the flower in the dimness of the world, 

The sanctuary across whose threshold hate' 

And anger may not pass, where Joy alone 

Spreads wide the beauteous rapture of its wings ; 

Where obscure yearnings of creation swell 

Into majesty of thought; where all that seemed 

So separate, grows one, and all that seemed 

So mortal — a symbol of Eternal Life. 



53 



Resurrection 

They troubled the earth a little, 

To hide a coffin away, 
And sorrow wept there a little, 

Then passed and faded away. 

Now Earth is splendid with sunshine, 
And strength and sweetness of spring, 

From depths of her in the sunshine 
Soft grass and violets spring 

Yea everywhere through the sunshine 

The resurrection of life. 
Even where they hid from the sunshine 

The pitiful waste of a life. 



54 



Evolution 

AfaV on the western horizon 

Over fragrance of harvest-clad fields, 
The sun his last flashing of crimson 

In passionate ecstasy yields. 
Darkness and dimness thicken, 

But beyond the shadow — behold, 
Effulgence of worlds without ending. 

The Universe fashioned in gold. 

Great worlds which are long extinguished. 

And worlds which labour to grow 
From vortex of nebular radiance. 

Coalesce in one quivering glow. 
Reveal what cannot be fathomed. 

Dimensions thought cannot attain, 
And distances wherein all measures 

Of human experience fall vain; 

Where Time is felt to be nothing 

But Eternity as it revolves, 
And Space the limit that ever 

In the limitless dies and dissolves; 
Where all that we deem so sure 

Of verdicts of evil and right, 
The standards and flags multi-coloured 
Round which we struggle and fight; 

Shrink to fables stammered by children, 

And Heaven itself seems a sigh 
Of weariness, far too mortal 

To span that splendour on high. 
That Power, which riots and revels 

In restlessness, struggle and strife, 
Whose Nadir is death and destruction. 

Whose Zenith is Progress and Life. 



55 



Benedicite Ver 

The Spring, the Spring! 

Bless ye the Spring ! 
His breath is Beauty, 
His lips are Love, 
His eyes a Glory 
A blessing his hands, 

Fruitfulness marketh the path of his feet. 
Spring is a poem written by God, 
His bounty's apocalypse. 
The heavenly harmony angels sing. 
The angels who dwell in the heart of all things. 
The angels, who render this earth so fair, — 
Bless, bless ye the Spring! 



56 



Spring 



Fling to me violets, 

Bring to me May, 

Cling to me sunshine. 

Sing to me birds, 

Ring to me royally blue-bell chime 

Spring ! I am Spring ! the life kindling time ! 



57 



Birds 

By the brink of the lake, 

Where leaves are so green, 
And the sky and its blueness 
Can scarcely be seen, 

The birds are calling, are calling. 

Over waters asleep, 
Just rippled by leap 

And silverswift splash 

Of fishes which flash. 

The birds are calling, are calling. 

Twixt grasses of summer, 

From flower to flower. 
Through golden green twilight 

Of drowsy noon-hour, 

The birds are calling, are calling. 

In thicket half-hidden, 

On branches on high, 
With bright-coloured wing 

Spread wide 'gainst the sky. 

The birds are calling, are calling. 

And surely thou knowest 

The sweet sounding name 
My lips in soft cadence 

To their love song would frame. 

As the birds are calling, are calling. 



58 



Summer Harvest 

It rose the first promise of springtide, 
It grew with the growth of the days, 

It gathered into its greenness 
All the gold and the glory of rays; 

It rippled in glittering sparkles 
With the laughing gladness of light; 

It breathed in tremulous whispers 
'Neath the passionate darkness of night; 

It fed on the heat of the sunshine; 

It drank of the coolness of rain, 
And now it is cut down and gathered — 

The straw and the chaff and the grain ; 

It is piled up in tall sheaves of plenty. 
The wage wherewith Summer and soil 

Reward in bounteous profusion 
The sweat of the labourer's toil. 

And I who have toiled not nor laboured, 
Who idled through long summer days. 

Who breathed the scent of wild flowers 
Who roamed over untrodden ways, 

Who tasted strange fruit, sweet and bitter; 

Who have culled so much pleasure and pain, 
Now 'tis come the time of the harvest: 

I must count the loss and the gain. 

The Reckoning Angel is standing 
Where autumn mists cover my path ; 

Will the depths of his eyes smile in favour, 
Or frown upon me in wrath? 

Is there aught in my hands save the stubble 
And chaff to be burnt into dust? 

Have I gathered but worldly treasure 
For the thief, and the moth and the rust? 

Nay! Behold of these it is empty, 
My summerdays' harvested store; 

I have reaped a heavenly treasure — 
The soul of one friendship the more ! 



Sic Transit 

Just a falling to seed among flowers, 

A tinge of gold in the leaves, 
And the wheat, where the warm winds rippled, 

Gathered up into motionless sheaves. 

Just a darkening of the shadows, 

A gradual waning of light, 
A deepening and a prolonging 

Of the exquisite coolness of night; 

Just a lingering in soft hollows 

Of the diamond sparkle of dew, 
A pearly and delicate veiling 

Of the luminousness of the blue. 

The summer seems sweeter than ever, 
Thus pierced with the sting of decay, 

If Death is always so tender, 

Why murmur when passing away? 



Though It Be Death 

Sheer on the snow exultant day : 
Beneath the ardor of his breath, 

To sparkle like the sun's own ray 
Is it not joy though it be death? 

Thus on my mouth thy lips' strong seal 
Beneath the fervor of thy breath 

The loss of my whole soul to feel. 
Is it not life though it be death? 



61 



To a Young Girl 

Red the bright beads of thy necklace, 

Red the tissue of thy dress 
Red thy cheetc's and mouth's soft outHne, 

White thy maiden loneliness. 

Red the flicker of the firelight, 
Where midst dancing of the flame. 

And faint dropping of the embers, 
Thou dost read the far one's name ; 

Where thine eyes aglow with laughter 
Of the child unused to fears, 

Darkening though with dim foreboding 
Of the woman's bitter tears, 

Seem to see with keener brightness 
Than the keen delight and strife 

Of red flametongues round the firewood. 
Red the reddest rose of life. 

And a wonder steals upon thee. 

And a yearning and a dread 
Lest some day between thy fingers 

It should lie discrowned and dead, 

Lest of all its wealth of fragrance, 

All its promise, all its lure. 
Some day nothing but the sorrow 

And the heartache should endure. 

Fear not child : Love's root lies deeper 
Than the flowering of one May, 

Something to thy soul is added 
For each petal blown away. 

Thou art one of those who kindle, 
From the dawning of their birth. 

With the joyfulness of beauty 
All the misery of earth; 

Who from height of their ideals 
Heaven's glory round us shed: 

White thy gentle soul forever. 
Red thy soft lips, warm and red. 



To Ruth 

Could I pluck from the sun its heart of gold 

i^rom virgin mines their treasures untold ' 

And then m figurings lavish and bold 

Upon the canvas glowing unfold 

^ir 1 "^fP^ wealth, would it half be told 

With all the splendour and radiance there 

Wherein amber, ruby and topaz share 

ihe exquisite sheen of thine auburn hair? 



Immortality 



I dreamed I had been dead a thousand years, 

And that the wastage of a thousand years 

Had been piled up upon my grave. The leaves 

And grasses of a thousand summers had drawn 

The sweetness from the upper air, and down 

Through mellow transformations they had drifted 

To nourish roots of trees struck straight through mould 

And mildew of my sunken coffin-lid, 

The coffin planks disjoined, dissolved, dropped back 

To dimness inorganic. All my bones 

Denuded from the ligaments of flesh 

But crumbling heaps of bloodless dust. I was 

No more a thing apart, but soil of soil 

And clay of clay, absorbed, and yet endowed 

With wondrous senses, seeing, without eyes 

In darkness, hearing without ears, in silence, 

Feeling without hands, in isolation. 

Being wholly dead, I was immortal. Change, 

Decay, disintegration, phantoms pale 

Of dream-lost days ; the prison consciousness 

Of self with putrefaction of the flesh 

Destroyed; the unfolding of Eternity 

Through Time thenceforth my sole pulsation ; peace 

Of knowledge absolute, my only thought ; 

The might and dark magnificence of that 

Whereon destruction dies, my godlike soul ! 

I dreamed I had been dead a thousand years 
And that the harvests of a thousand years 
Had weighed and slowly wasted on my grave. 



64 



JUL ii9 m7 



